


Memory

by flippantninny



Series: Bethyl Week [6]
Category: Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-19
Updated: 2014-08-19
Packaged: 2018-02-13 21:27:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2165823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flippantninny/pseuds/flippantninny
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bethyl Week Day Six</p>
            </blockquote>





	Memory

**Author's Note:**

> For the sixth day of Bethyl Week.

Beth had been with the group for two weeks now. Two weeks on the road to DC, two weeks of Maggie finding her at least once an hour just to confirm she was still there, two weeks of people asking her where she’d been and what had happened, two weeks of meeting the new people, of getting used to Eugene, and two weeks of Daryl ignoring her.

He was constantly looking out for her, the two of them always within each other’s line of sight, but the only things he would say to her were snide remarks about hurrying up and  getting Judith to shut up.

And it wasn’t just her he’d been snapping at. She’d watched as Tyreese and Rick had to physically restrain him from beating the shit out of Abraham. She’d never known Daryl to be particularly calm, but these days he was angry all the time, if he ever decided to make good on his threats Abraham would end up with at least 5 arrows in his ass.

He reminded her a lot of the guy she met at the farm. She missed the Daryl Dixon who’d led the prison and protected her after it fell.

And she wasn’t going to let him keep going with this asshole façade for much longer.

“‘m goin’ huntin’” he’d announced one morning, grabbing his pack and his bow and walking away from the camp they’d set up two nights ago.

"I’ll go with," Beth said, ignoring the confused expression on Maggie’s face and waiting for at least some response out of Daryl. He didn’t turn around, didn’t stop walking, but didn’t day no. That was good enough for her.

"Beth, what’re doing?" Maggie asked quietly as Beth quickly grabbed her pack, and stood up, taking a second to check Judith was in safe hands, being fed by Tyreese.

"Huntin’," she replied, running after Daryl.

Daryl hadn’t expected her to follow. He figured ignoring her was a good enough way of saying no. And he almost wouldn’t have noticed her following him, her tread was almost as light as his these days, but he was in hunting mode, his ears listening out for any sign of noise, and even Beth wasn’t silent.

He didn’t acknowledge her for a while. He considered telling her to fuck off back to camp, but the idea of her walking alone in the woods, even if only for a minute, didn’t sit right by him, and he’d already started tracking something, a cotton tail or squirrel, he wasn’t sure which just yet, so he let her follow.

A few minutes passed by, no one talking, just tracking, when Beth finally spoke up.

"Why are we still followin’ a cotton tail when there’s a deer trail goin’ that way?" she asked, waiting for him to turn and acknowledge her before she pointed in another direction between the trees.

If it had come from anyone else it would have been condescending, bragging that she’d noticed a trail he hadn’t. But from Beth it was genuinely curious, like she thought he had seen the deer trail and genuinely wanted to know why he would choose to follow a rabbit instead, like she was expecting him to explain that the deer trail was old or wasn’t a deer at all. Or that the cotton tail was just round the corner and they would go back for the deer.

Truth was he hadn’t noticed the new trail at all.

He was distracted.

And that just pissed him off more, why did she have to go following him? Couldn’t he have a few hours of peace, a few hours away from camp and away from Rick trying to talk to him and Carol trying to tell him to calm down and away from Beth.

"Bet you think yer real smar’ now," he said, turning on his heel and pushing past her to find the deer trail. She was right, it was fresh and perfect for tracking. Not a small deer either, enough to get them a couple of days of big meals before they left the camp and hit the road for a DC again.

"No, Daryl, you’re the best tracker I know, I thought you’d seen it," she said. The earnestness of his voice pissed him off.

"Yeah, well, ain’t on my game when I’ve gotta look out for you as well."

"Funny, I remember us being a pretty good team," she said, pushing past him to follow the trail.

He shook his head, glaring at the back of her head, at the blonde pony tail, at the messy braid.

"When was that, when yer foot was in a snare or you wer bein’ taken away in a black car? Cause I remember us bein’ a pretty shitty team."

She stopped, her head snapping round to face him.

"What happened to you?" she asked. She could feel her hands shaking at her sides, her voice wavering. "What happened to us?"

Daryl glared at her, his eyes not leaving hers, “don’ know what yer talkin’ about,” he said, no growled, at her.

He started walking again, past her, following the trail. He walked for a few seconds before realising she wasn’t following him. He turned to look at her, her eyes still trained on him.

"I know you, Daryl Dixon. I know who you are. You’re not this guy, you’re not the guy back at the farm, you’re not the guy who yells before he talks. You’re the guy I burned a house down with," She was shouting now. Loud enough to scare off the deer. He should have told her to shut up, she probably just lost them a meal, lost them any hope of finding meat for tonight. But she was still glaring at him, and he didn’t think telling her to shut up would help. "You’re the guy who carried me to breakfast and asked me to keep singin’," he cringed at the memory, "What happened to you?"

Daryl shrugged. What could he say?  _You happened to him, Beth Greene. He was there and he was happy and then you were gone and so was he, and now I’m this mess of a man and I don’t know what to fo about it._

"That guy was stupid enough t’ open a door without checkin’ for walkers. You might not like me anymore but I’ll keep you alive, that guy wouldn’t’ve," and that was it, wasn’t it? Beth was a distraction and if he wanted Beth alive he had to stop being distracted by Beth. And he definitely wanted Beth alive.

"That guy was the best person I knew. I’d rather die with him than live with you," she spat back at him.

"You don’ know what you’re sayin’," he spat back.

"No, I do. Those are my happiest memories since this whole shit storm started, you don’t get to take those away from me and turn them into something bad."

"What do you want me to say, huh?" he was yelling now. Yelling loud enough that anyone within a mile could probably hear them. But they were tucked away in the own corner of the forest, isolated from everyone else, so he continued to yell, "you wanna know the truth? Truth is I can’t live without you, I tried it, and it sucked, and I ain’t tryin’ it again. So if this is who I gotta be to keep you alive, the this is who I’ll be."

"Great," she said, "fine, you keep me alive. Then I can be just like you. Alive but not living."

He was about to tell her again that she didn’t know what she was talking about, but she was turning away, dropping her pack off her shoulder and grabbing a bottle of water from it.

"Let’s play a game," she said, unscrewing the cap and walking toward him, bottle held out to him, "I never did a one eighty on a relationship just ‘cause I was scared."

He looked down at the bottle she was holding out to him, ready to tell her she was being stupid and wasting water, but her eyes were lighting up like a bonfire.

"Drink up, Dixon," she said, pronouncing every syllable.

“‘s jus’ water,” he replied.

"I don’t give a shit what it is, I said drink up," she said, pushing the bottle against his chest. It sloshed over the rim, spilling over her hand and his shirt, "I never did a one eighty on a relationship, and I never treated someone like crap just because admitting I care about them is scary, and I never searched for someone for weeks just to push them away when I found them and I definitely never left a conversation like that unfinished."

Daryl grabbed the bottle, not taking a drink but steadying it to stop the water spilling over the edge. His hands covered hers around it.

"What conversation?"

She glared up at him, “don’t play dumb, Dixon, you know which conversation,” she said, raising an eyebrow at him, “oh,” she said, her tone not soft and surprised like it had been at the funeral home, but petulant and defiant, daring him to disagree with her, to tell her the conversation never happened.

"What do ya want me t’ say?" he asked, "yeah, there’s good people, you showed me that, but you still got taken anyway, so It don’t matter, ‘cause there’s still bad people. Best I can do it make sure they don’ get you again."

"No, best you can do is not be one of them. Because it does matter, good people are all we’ve got left, and I know you’re one of them, so stop playing the asshole and be who you are."

She glared at him and he glared and her and he was uncomfortably aware of their proximity, his hand on hers, his face close to hers, their eyes not leaving each others. Then her expression softened, and he watched as the fire in them went out, like she was done fighting, done trying to convince him. And he felt his expression soften too, the lines that had painted his face for over a month fading away slightly.

"I miss you," she said, her gaze finally dropping from his, her hand slipping from his, the bottle falling to the ground.

"I’m right here," he replied.

"No," she said, "I haven’t seen you since I found you."

She picked up the water bottle, screwing the cap on and tucking it into her pack, then started inspecting the ground for the trail again. He watched her, watched the moment she saw it, watched as she started walking, and wordlessly he followed her.

Again, they tracked in silence. He should probably have just told her the deer was going to be long gone by then, that yelling while hunting isn’t a smart thing to do for a reason, but he didn’t want to go back to camp not talk to her and didn’t want to talk to her either. So tracking in silence seemed like a good enough plan.

So he continued to watch her. He watched her notice each turn in the trail, each print. And he watched her foot as it caught in a tree root and before his brain had thought it through or her body had even started to fall, his arm was around her waist pulling her back against him, steadying her.

They stood like that for a moment, her back to his chest. And she concentrated on her breathing, waiting for it to even out, trying not to focus on Daryl, his smell, his arm, his breath against her neck.

And when she had finally relaxed she spoke.

"You’re the missing piece of me, Daryl, and it’s like I found you but you refuse to fit."

"I know," he replied, and she heard it, a glimpse of him, the real him, the guy she’d found in the moonshine shack and lost in the funeral home, "I’m sorry."


End file.
